Sleeping Beauty
''Sleeping Beauty ''by the Brothers Grimm, Sabrina and Daphne's ancestors through Wilhelm Grimm, is a story about a baby princess named Briar Rose, born to a King and Queen who had wanted desperately to have a child for a very long time. Naturally, when she was born, the King and Queen were overjoyed, and threw a party for everyone in the kingdom. They even invited the 13 wise women, but only had enough settings for 12 of them, and so the thirteenth was left behind. The wise women had magic and wished to bestow gifts on the child, and so they did. After the eleventh of the twelve wise women in attendance had given Briar Rose her gift, the thirteenth wise women, jealous that she had not been able to attend the party, burst into the room and cast a curse of the child. The curse stated that on her fifteenth birthday, Briar Rose would prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die. Then then thirteenth stormed from the room without another word. The twelfth wise woman used her gift to soften the curse, to make it be so that when she pricked her finger, instead of dying she would simply fall into a one hundred year sleep. The King was grateful, but not satisfied, so he demanded that all spindles in the kingdom be destroyed. Everything was peaceful until the Princess's 15th birthday, when she was left alone to wander the castle and found an old tower. When she entered she saw an old woman spinning flax on a spindle, and decided that she wanted to spin flax too. However, when she touched the spindle, she immediately fell into a deep sleep. Not only did she fall asleep, but then entire kingdom did, and a wall of thorns grew to surround the palace, trapping and killing all who attempted to enter. Finally, as exactly 100 years past, with those in the palace not aging at all during their enchanted sleep. a prince decided that he was not afraid of the thorns and went to try and enter the castle. However, as the 100 years had passed, he found no thorns but flowers blocking the palace, and managed to enter it without any difficulties, and immediately went in search of the beautiful princess that was rumored to be in the palace. Eventually he found her, still at the top of the tower, and right as his lips met hers, she awoke from the last effects of the spell wearing off, as did the rest of the kingdom. Meaning There are many meanings and lessons behind the story of Sleeping Beauty. There is the lesson to be polite, all of the problems in the fairy tale could have been avoided if only all of the wise women were welcome to the party. It also teaches the danger of secrecy, as if Briar Rose had known about her curse, she would not have picked up the spindle. The last large lesson that is taught through the story of Sleeping Beauty is to be cautious of strangers. Regardless on whether or not she knew to avoid spindles, Briar Rose should not have blindly trusted the woman she found at the top of a tower, especially behind a door with a lock and key attached to it. The Sisters Grimm In The Sisters Grimm, Briar Rose is seen as quite a bit opposite as she is portrayed in the legend. She is described as soft-spoken and demure, which seems she would be much less trusting of strangers than she is in the original story. She also has fairy godmothers, unlike the Grimm version of the tale, and like the Perrault. Also, in the Grimm version, it was not actually the Prince (William Charming)'s kiss that woke her from her sleep, but the end of the 100 years that she was cursed to sleep for. The Prince just happened to kiss her at the right time in the tale. In The Sisters Grimm however, she herself says that it was the Prince's kiss that woke her from her sleep. This removes some of her own agency, as she does not wake up herself, but needs assistance from a man to do so. However, I would argue that though this removed some of her agency from her original tale, she eventually ends up having much more agency in her life than she ever did in the original story. She owns her own business, she joins a poker group, which could be seen as decidedly unladylike, and she fights a dragon, on her own and without any sense of fear. Even though her heroic actions facing the dragon caused her death, it was still completely on her own terms, and she never gave up fighting for what she believed in. Briar Rose's amazing story also showed that finding love again is possible. She was married to the literal Prince Charming, and was still able to live years without any romantic interests in her life completely happy, and even attend parties thrown by her ex without experiencing any pain. And she eventually does find true love again, in the form of the Sabrina and Daphne's Uncle Jake, who was just about to propose to her before her sudden and tragic death. Characters * Briar Rose * William Charming * Mallobarb * Buzzflower